Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [134]
“He’d have been like that whatever she wore. We’d better go and look at their shoes.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because Iona will be in her room, for a start,” Emily pointed out. “We can hardly interrupt her and say ‘Please may we look through your wardrobe to see if we can find a pair of blue-heeled slippers, because we think you were wearing them when you killed Ainsley Greville in his bath?’ ”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You go when we are all at luncheon,” Emily commanded. “I shall keep everyone occupied at the table. You excuse yourself, blame a headache or something.”
“What do you mean ‘keep everybody occupied’?” Charlotte said with a touch of sarcasm. “If they are at luncheon, they will be occupied anyway.”
“I’ll see they don’t leave. I can’t very well plead a headache, even if I have a real one. What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”
“No, of course not,” Charlotte replied indignantly. “I don’t want it to be Eudora, for Thomas’s sake, and I don’t want it to be Justine, because I like her.”
“I don’t want it to be anybody,” Emily agreed. “Because I think Ainsley Greville was a complete bounder. But wanting has nothing to do with it.”
“I know that! I’ll find the slippers during luncheon.”
When Pitt had left her, Grade’s brief moment of feeling better vanished. There was only one good thing about it. She was quite sure the “maid” she had seen was not Doll Evans. She had not been tall enough for Doll, she was sure of that now. And she did not think Doll would take anyone’s shoes, but if she had worn slippers with heels like that, she would have been even taller. Only now did she realize how afraid she had been that Doll had gone into the bathroom and hit Greville over the head and then pulled him under the water. She had certainly had provocation. Gracie had no sympathy with Ainsley Greville at all. Anyone who could do that to a girl, and to his own child, deserved a lot of pain in return. It was just a pity so many other people had to suffer as well. But maybe nobody ever suffered without taking other people with them.
She could not keep Finn from her mind. His pain engulfed her. Disillusion was one of the hardest things to bear. If he had been so wrong about the murder of Neassa Doyle and what he believed of his own people, then what else had he been wrong about? What else was lies? If they could murder their own sister, who and what were they? What was the cause they were really fighting for? If Finn had given so much of his emotional loyalty to them, how could he cope with it if they were unworthy of him, or of anyone? How much of it all was lies?
He must be asking himself that now. He would be terribly alone and confused. In one brief quarter hour or so, she had robbed him of his lifetime’s beliefs, belonging to his people, loyalties, angers, all that he thought he was. She should not have done that. Some truths should be told gently, maybe even little by little.
She had no urgent jobs. Charlotte’s clothes were all in excellent repair. And Charlotte certainly did not want Gracie to sit and talk to her, read to her, which was sometimes a real lady’s maid’s job. Charlotte always had more to do than she had time for anyway. But then her life was not like that of a lady. Gracie would find it terrible to look after real gentry after the excitement of being with the Pitts. How did people like Gwen and Doll bear the sameness of it?
She should go and find Finn and make up her quarrel with him. He would need all the friendship she could offer now. And she wanted to apologize. She had acted without thinking hard enough.
The decision was made. She left the ironing room and went to look for him.
He was not in any of the places where he would normally be carrying out his duties. She did not like to ask for him. It was bad enough to imagine people knew how she felt. She was painfully self-conscious. She knew how observant she was of other people’s behavior. There was rather a lot to be said